BECKER BRIDGE

Famous Hand

This deal occurred in the Netherlands-Italy match at the 1966 world team championship.

With Benito Garozzo North and Pietro Forquet South for Italy, the bidding went as shown. The Italians were playing the Neapolitan Club system, and, in accordance with it, Garozzo opened one club, indicating 17 or more points. The two-club response by Forquet was artificial and indicated two aces and a king.

From then on, the bidding was natural. Garozzo showed his diamonds, and Forquet jumped to three spades, indicating a long, strong spade suit. Garozzo raised to four, and Forquet passed, fearing North's clubs might be of poor quality since North had failed to cuebid the suit. West led his singleton diamond, and Forquet could take no more than 11 tricks to score a seemingly normal 650 points.

At the second table, with a Dutch pair North-South, the bidding was less scientific but more successful: West led the jack of hearts, and declarer had no trouble taking all 13 tricks. Three clubs was probably meant to inhibit West from leading that suit -- though in the actual deal, West would hardly have led a club even if the suit had not been bid.

As seen from what happened at the first table, a diamond lead would 0have stopped the slam, since it would have cut declarer off from dummy's red-suit tricks before all the opposing trumps could be drawn. As it was, with the actual lead Holland gained 810 points on the deal.